Hi all.
I use my computer to do things -- communicate, manipulate content in various media and formats, organize my life, perform the various tasks required of me.
I get involved in "how this is all done" to the minimum extent possible, though I understand that to some exploring the innards of the system is a source of passion for computing as much as it may be to others for cars, coffee, washing machines or the human body.
For most things, I tend to be comfortable with defaults until they stop working or unless I have a specific need for better performance. I try to be sanguine about technology rollovers -- Unix to Linux, X to Wayland, init to systemd, pulseaudio to pipewire, etc etc -- so long as they don't break my ability to do what I need to.
In this context, I am truly intrigued by
"Debian's 2014 decision to use systemd without requiring compatibility with any other init system was one of the most sleazy, kangaroo court railroad jobs there's been outside of politics and 1940's southern USA courtrooms."
for I have a hard time comparing the stakes of the two things being compared. In the realm of open source it's not like the Debian debate was between warring corporate special interests each looking to cash out. Is there reason to believe that the various factions in the systemd debate were NOT acting in good faith on behalf of what they thought was the best way forward? One may argue with the process but I don't think that Debian has really suffered much aftermath over the past decade.
Obviously in this world if you don't like something -- for any reasons, technical or not (see "Godot") -- you can fork or re-invent it. So apparently there are multiple re-inventions of init, of which systemd -- like ksh, vim, cups, ext4 and other defaults -- become most popular among mainstream distributions despite the many alternatives available.
I had never heard of Adéline or Void Linux before now. I was aware of Gentoo but have kept my distance. I will likely not give them another look because my application needs define/refine my OS choices. They appear to offer no benefits to my type of use but offer many potential risks if the apps upon which I depend don't like them.
Can someone make an ELI5 case why I should care about systemd alternatives?